(Corrects information about the founding of Parent Revolution, adds that union backed anti-trigger activist in Florida, clarifies proposed structure...
Now, courtesy of Gates and others, we're on the front edge of an analogous privatizing wave that will drown public education. Once it's gone, we'll never get it back.
As the school year closes on hundreds of school turnarounds, the must-read book is Alexander Russo's Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors. Russo recounts the turnaround of Locke High School by Steve Barr and Green Dot.
I can't help but wonder if it isn't an intentional Catch 22 that some people are trying to trap our public schools in: setting them up to fail, making it impossible for them to be creative or independent.
Much of what has been written about Harlem Village Academies, Green Dot and many other charter schools is the product of a massive PR machine, of which Waiting for "Superman" is just the glossiest example.
"Waiting for 'Superman' " may well perform a valuable service by shining light on a long-neglected issue. But I can't help but focus on the fact that it seems flawed in its two principal policy arguments.
But in choosing--and reinforcing--the clichés of school reform, Waiting for "Superman" naively endorses an inflammatory politics that only hardens people and their positions.
Charter schools are not the magic bullet that will transform urban minority public schools. As you peel away layers of the charter onion, the inevitable problems come to the surface.
Think of it as a big chem lab experiment. The Los Angeles Unified School District is testing the hypothesis that allowing a bunch of people to compete for running schools will yield better ones.
For many people who do not have bank accounts, or cannot get a credit card, the appeal is irresistible, making the reloadable cards among the consumer...
Getting unions to prioritize compensation and not the strictures that constrain schools would require a tectonic shift in their priorities, but precedent for such reformed advocacy does exist.
Some of the most interesting examples of urban education reform anywhere in the nation are happening here in Los Angeles. One of these reforms is in teacher training.
In the final episode of Seinfeld, the apathetic foursome were arrested in a small New England town for standing by and laughing while a heavy-set man ...
After Green Dot turned my Watts, L.A. high school into a charter, I felt a sense of inspiration in witnessing and living the transformation process. I should not be the exception.
New University of Chicago findings pour cold water on both the most ardent critics and most ardent proponents of both Ren10 and the charter schools it has created.
Take one run down high school near Watts, California, that straddles two rival gang territories and has a 75% dropout rate for incoming freshmen; add...
Barack Obama, in a pre-election speech, told the story of a teacher he encountered who complained of a "these kids" syndrome - the tendency to explain...